FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

2022 Beta Testing

Sep 24, 2021 Written by Kevin O'Connor, Senior Robotics Engineer, FIRST Robotics Competition

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As all of you start gearing up for the 2022 season, the Control System Team is gearing up too! With the new REV Robotics control system devices and the roboRIO 2.0 both debuting this season, WPILib will have a few more breaking changes than a typical season. Some of those changes may be due to the new devices, while some may be changes that we have wanted to make for a while and held off to keep code compatible. Before anybody gets too worried, the overall scope of these changes is still pretty small; it probably won’t take most teams more than a meeting or two to update old code, especially with the help of the Changelog documentation that will be available.

Given this larger set of breaking changes, and to allow teams to experiment with the new hardware as soon as it is available (assuming teams purchase their own hardware), we are going to do beta testing a little bit different this year. Unlike previous years, where we capped the number of teams participating in the test, this year we will allow an unlimited number of teams to participate. Teams will still have to complete an application and designate a small number of individuals to access the site where the beta software is going to be hosted, but any team that submits a complete, reasonable application will be accepted. Similar to testing in previous seasons, there will be a list of testing tasks and we strongly encourage teams to complete, and provide feedback on, these tasks in order to help us make sure the software is well tested prior to the season. Feedback must be submitted by early December for inclusion in the Kickoff release, but teams may continue testing until Kickoff.

The first release of Beta software is expected to be available around the first or second week of October. Teams completing the application prior to October 4th should expect to receive further information about accessing the beta site on or before October 8th. Applications completed after October 4th will be processed 1-2 times per week. The application process will close on December 17th to allow us to focus on preparing for the season.

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Comments

Please advise re the "Mentor TeamForge Username".
Do we propose a name or should we set up a username? Where/how do we do this?

Hi Peter,

Please create a free TeamForge user account on the FIRST TeamForge server prior to filling out the Beta Form by clicking "Create an Account" on this page: https://usfirst.collab.net

I was also curious about how to secure a TeamForge account, and after doing some searching of the web for references, I *think* that it's a question of registering at https://usfirst.collab.net/sf/sfmain/do/home.

But an official confirmation of this would be extremely helpful!

Hello, I'm Kevin williams one of the lead mentors for 7443 Jag-wires. We are currently on our 3rd season and have progressed in impressive ways. We would like the opportunity to listed a beta team to test out new Rev Robotics software and equipment. Our still young team has already designed and test many parts and systems for our frc robot. This last year we transition to a swerve chassis and we're able to perfect it in a short amount of time. It would be our our to be able to assist.

Thanks, Kevin williams

 

 

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for your interest! Make sure you fill out the Beta Test Application linked in the blog above! It asks some specific questions we need answered to be able to work with teams to perform the testing.

Thank you so much for making the Beta Testing available to more teams this year ! 
I am having some trouble creating a TeamForge account - it seems that I am not receiving the email required to complete the registration (maybe I typed in the incorrect email address on my account setup?).  How can teams get support for TeamForge and the Beta Testing Program?  

Hi Richard,

Sorry you're having trouble. We've heard TeamForge e-mails are particularly likely to get caught in spam filters, including some that prevent them from even appearing in spam folders. Go ahead and fill out the Beta form with the username you tried to create and I can activate your account manually.

I am also having issues with getting registered with the TeamForge site. Checked spam folder etc. no confirmation email. How can I proceed?

Hi Adam,

Sorry you're having trouble. We've heard TeamForge e-mails are particularly likely to get caught in spam filters, including some that prevent them from even appearing in spam folders. Go ahead and fill out the Beta form with the username you tried to create and I can activate your account manually.

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